That's What Friends Are For

Something I was listening to got me to thinking about how I came to be friends with the people who have been my best friends at various points in my life. I don't really remember all the details, but it is interesting to me.

My best friend in High School was Jay Champion. He moved to our town in 5th Grade, and before long we started hanging out, playing video games, and playing tennis. For us, I think it was just the simple fact that when he started our school, I was friendly to him. Maybe it was because I had also been the "new guy" just a few years before. We stayed good friends all through High School, and we still talk occasionally.

In college, my best friend was not one of my Fraternity brothers, but a young woman who I called K-Bob. Her real name was Kristi Ramer. We met when I was hanging out in the lobby of the North Russell dorm at Baylor University. There was a group of us that played Spades regularly, and Kristi and I developed a friendship fairly quickly. We lost touch a few years ago, and I can't remember her married name, so I can't Google her to find her. We used to get together and play Trivial Pursuit or watch "Jeopardy!"

I can remember the details for how I met my current best friend, Rod Martin, much better. Our first day in law school, the faculty hosted a BBQ dinner for First Year students. Rod and I found each other sitting in the student lounge waiting for the dinner to start. We immediately started talking politics, particularly drug policy. Despite our initial disagreement on that issue, we soon discovered that we agreed on almost all issues. I spent hours and hours at Rod's house during law school. We would play video football and talk and talk and talk.

Obviously, there are a lot more details to all three of these stories, but that's pretty much the jist of how I met those three particular friends.